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Two years ago, visual artist, puppeteer and director Chrystene Ells was catapulted out of her body through the top of her head during a sudden onset of partial seizures.

Upon re-entry, she found a brighter and more serene world, so different that for nearly a year, she secretly wondered whether she was dead.

In losing facility with verbal language and linear time, she had somehow stepped into a transcendentally beautiful universe which unfolded behind the sheer curtain of cognitive functioning. While friends worried and baffled doctors suggested she had experienced ‘events’ in the temporal lobe of her brain, Ells’ inquiries unveiled that many people have similar unexpected encounters with states of surreal bliss, interconnectedness, and bright humour — and that there is some non-pathological fun to be had in The Big Living and The Big Dying.

The KaleidoCycle ensemble presents Chrystene’s story through puppetry, clowning, physical theatre, film, and American Sign Language poetry, with an original score by composer Jason Cullimore.